by Tove Jansson
27th.
Today I brushed and cleaned the hollow after I’d emptied it and then sprinkled sand into it like you told me to.
And I wrote that awful article for Svenska Dagbladet, “What it’s like to write for children”, which I’ve felt uncomfortable about for so long. I tried to spice it up with the kids’ own healthy taste for the macabre, the obvious and the reckless, in the healthiest sense, and to write as little as possible about myself and my blessed old troll.
Then I hauled stones to make a fine terrace in that place where the grass is yellow and started thinking about the next synopsis, the one where Pappa is a lighthouse keeper. A story about the sea and different sorts of solitude, and everything that can happen to you along beaches. But I’ve no clear idea of how I want it yet.
The wine is bubbling away madly and the place smells like a moonshine factory. It’s spitting with rain on and off and the sea is grey and austere.
28th. Suddenly there’s lots going on again. I’d hardly had time to make the bed before Björn Landström came over the hill, with Vivica after him – they’d both arrived by water taxi.
The first thing Uca did was to ferret out your letter, and after an enormous amount of coffee drinking and going through the Moomin advertisements for the Co-op Bank and seeing Landström off, I was finally able to read the letter.
You’re right that it always tends to be easier to go than to stay – even if you’re happy being with the one you are leaving. I know. But this time it would have been more right and natural for us to stay with each other.
I can’t help feeling terribly smug that you long to be back here. I’m waiting for you already.
Everything I do, everything new that I see – there’s a parallel reflection: I shall show this to Tuulikki. Waiting is a sheer pleasure when it’s for you – and the calm awareness that all I have to do is add together a number of days, and we’ll see each other again. I haven’t dared try the mosquito song. That would make me sad and I’d miss your embrace so much.
It’s wonderful that your brother got the Brussels Prize! That’s a really great accolade. And it’s excellent that you simply took a taxi and went straight round to celebrate with him, not worrying about the whole sensitive family situation!
I’m sure the two of you forged a new kind of contact that evening, perhaps found you could be natural with each other like before. Uca told me about the prize, too, and everything you both said when you met, and you more or less insisting she came directly here, which made her incredibly glad and proud. She’s sound asleep beside me, exhausted. The Paris séjour went well, but it was all a lot of trouble, and the reaction afterwards, and now she has a long, overwhelmng year of theatre ahead. She’s tired but composed, and pleased with the results of her work, and we’ve let the day go by just talking to each other.
Thank you for the fly swatter my darling, it seems extremely effective. To think of you remembering it amidst all the rushing about, “dark love” and picture hanging and exhibition planning and what not!
I appreciate that you haven’t had time to go to a doctor, but it worries me a lot that you couldn’t.
How is your knee? Does it feel any worse? I can understand your insides being in tumult. They don’t like having to move from place to place, and demonstrate it by rearranging the days all wrong. Can’t we wait a few more days for each other in August so you’ve time to go and get the wretched thing looked at? Beloved, I understand your lack of relish at the prospect of Korpilahti. But just think, this is the last time ever! Then we can do whatever we want with our summers.
And our winters, the whole lot! I’m so unused to being happy that I haven’t really come to terms with what it involves. Suddenly my arms are heaped full of new opportunities, new harmony, new expectations. I feel like a garden that’s finally been watered, so my flowers can bloom.
10221!
The last evening with Uca – tomorrow she goes home and Ham and Faffan will probably come out. We still haven’t done anything but talk; it’s so rare for us to be on our own together, and so much has happened since the last time. But the strange thing is that, whatever I talk about, it always seems to come back to you, and I sing your praises in uncontrollable dithyrambs. She doesn’t contradict me.
Goodnight darling. Look after yourself.
Tove.
science fiction synopsis: The comic strip “Moomin and the Martians”.
kilju: Homemade wine.
that awful article for Svenska Dagbladet: “Apropos rita och berätta” (On Drawing and Storytelling), Svenska Dagbladet 1.12.1956.
10221!: This figure and those in the following letters refer to the number of comic-strip frames TJ has completed.
5.7.56. [Bredskär]
Beloved,
10,227!
At least today I got in first.
I wonder how the sunny Finnish weather here on the island looks at Korpilahti – maybe it’s just heat there. Maybe you’re working indoors and longing for an overcast day to make your task easier.
You can’t leave your sheets of paper for a while as I can, go down to the red rock and slide into the sea, or let off steam splitting chunks of firewood.
I’m working on the Landström job now. And talking of chunks of wood, I’ve accumulated a pile of them for you, the ones I couldn’t get through. The trick of hammering the axe in with another axe mostly results in my having to saw them both out. (Already used as a comic strip idea, unfortunately …)
Ham and Faffan actually did come out the day Uca left, looking tired, a bit grey and, you know, awfully pleased to be here.
Since then, every day has been perfect. Faffan isn’t playing patience but has thrown himself into fishing and catches so many that we have to share them with the seagulls. Faffan’s favourite seagull is called Pelle, it screeches with joy whenever it sees him and sits in the same spot all day long, waiting. And Ham feeds the wagtails at the verandah table, where I can see the whole family hopping around while I draw.
In the mornings the nylon net is hung up to dry on your knotty wooden hooks and every day Faffan goes paddling off to Måsskär with his rods and sinkers and all the other paraphernalia. He’s grown tanned and cheerful and if I offer round the kilju he only has a glass or two.
Even though this batch turned out delicious, and strong! And Ham is tinkering with a bark boat, a frigate, which is going to be completely incredible – with Moune-Borgå on the stern. (A commission from Vivica, for Moune!)
I’m so pleased to see them enjoying themselves and looking healthier with every passing day. One day we went out to Tunnis and I dashed straight to “our” camp. But someone else had used it since we were last there, the cooking place, the stock of fuel, everything – even the tins – and nothing was where it should be and there was paper littered everywhere. I was just as cross as when they made such a mess in the guest room. Next time we’ll camp at a new site of our own. I dug up loads of lily-of-the-valley and planted them behind the woodshed where the birch stump is, and I also collected some shore plants with violet flowers, which will look lovely at the beach where we pull up the boat.
And the terrace behind the house is finished, completely round, 1.90 in diameter. The wild strawberries have appeared, and all the blue and red beach flowers. And the wasps have simmered down, but now there are flies everywhere instead. Summer is moving on through its stages and sometimes I feel so melancholy that you aren’t here. But perhaps it’s good to have a bit of distance between us. I know now that I couldn’t possibly be more attached to you, in a harmonious and happy way that can only grow stronger and more tender.
But I’ve known that all along.
Now it’s evening, with a restless nighttime wind, and Ham is lighting the paraffin lamp.
Guess what, she’d run into Eva, who exploded on the spot at the news that you’d been on the island. I realise you were obliged to mention it. Good grief. But perhaps it’s just as well for them to start gradually getting used to us.
At five in the morning we were woken by two young fellows, half frozen to death, whose monster of a motorboat had ran aground. It broke down in the storm and was hurled onto Lilla Båtskär (where we picked the ox-eye daisies). Once the weather calmed down in the morning, the boys managed to get over here, using their one oar. The boat had a huge gash in its hull.
We poured coffee and rum into them and dressed them in Lasse’s trousers. Then we took them home to Kungshamn in the rowing boat. We’d barely had time to get back to sleep when some agitated relation of theirs turned up to tow the motorboat home. They’d waited up all night and called out the coastguard and were as angry as you’d expect with their kids (who’d been well on their way to drifting across to Estonia), the way one is when relief has followed hard on anxiety.
The swallows are flitting in and out of their nest, but sometimes they’re out partying orwhatevertheydo for half a day. So I hope their babies shuffle well down inside while they’re waiting. I read in the bird book that they do that as soon as the food stops coming.
It’s night now and a big thunderstorm is veering in from the south.
But where’s the excitement in that when you’re not here to protect me. Ham’s lying in bed in her fine Bredskär nightgown giggling over “Funny things people say” and Faffan has withdrawn to the guest room with a flame-grilled roach.
I shall immerse myself in Putkinotkon. When Vivica saw it she shrieked with delight to see what it was and said it was a book she adored.
Käkriäinen has just left home in a fury. Incidentally, I’m also reading the Bible – or simply falling asleep, worn out by all those things I find so hard to explain when people ask: But what do you do all day on that island!? Don’t you get bored?
No, not at all. But I do miss you. Lots!
P.S. your letter just arrived – no time to read it right away because Cay’s going straight back. Ham’s brother from Sweden, and his family, have come to visit.
Eva: Probably Eva Wichmann.
Putkinotkon: Putinotko is the name of a novel by Finnish author Joel Lehtonen.
Käkriäinen: Juutas Käkriäinen, one of the characters in Putkinotko.
Cay: Abbe and Greta Gustafsson’s son.
10.7.56 [Bredskär]
Beloved,
Now my adored relations have finally gone to sleep, strewn about in the most unlikely sleeping places, the chatter has died down, the storm too, and I can talk to you.
Thank you for your letter, which felt like a happy hug. Oh yes, my Tuulikki, you have never given me anything but warmth, love and good cheer.
Isn’t it remarkable, and seriously wonderful, that there’s still not a single shadow between us? And you know what, the best thing of all is that I’m not afraid of the shadows. When they come (as I suppose they must, for all those who care for one another), I think we can manoeuvre our way through them.
I’m glad you have the advantage of a room to yourself at Korpilahti, so you can just get on with your work and not be disturbed by the cares and intrigues of the colony.
If you write in Finnish, please could you be a dear and use the typewriter; your handwriting’s a bit tricky sometimes. I very much wonder if you could read my last letter at all, Uncle Harald having fallen in the sea with it, along with a consignment of comic strips and a bag of whisky.
It’s all been intense family living here since they arrived on their sailing boat from Sweden. I ruthlessly go off and draw when I have to, but between times I’m available for household tasks, Bacchanals, childminding and conversation, whatever turns up. Part of me enjoys it, the other part takes out its frustrations chopping wood. Harald arrived just in time for his birthday, which has traditionally always been a big bash, celebrated at sea.
This year it was magnificently framed by a storm and ended in the traditional joyous whirl of dancing on the rocks, tumbling into pools and climbing trees. Gentle mother Saga looked after their children for the evening, but in return, all the youngsters from Viken will be coming over to sleep out in tents sometime soon.
The invasions of our beaches are intensifying. Bitti’s in town and will be coming out any time now. After the 20th Uca and Nita. Maybe Kurt. Maybe Maya Vanni. I’m going to try to try to keep my work very separate and leave the cooking to them as much as I can – which is hard, because it’s easier and more natural to do what’s necessary myself.
But I expect it will sort itself out. Presumably there are going to be various strange collisions, but I’m not worried. As regards you and Bitti, it might be much better for you to meet here than in town. The island stays just as beautiful and relaxing, whatever the context in which folk come gadding over the rocks.
One day the whole of Viken came out, Peo as well, bathing was soon in full swing and I had to cook like crazy. It’s good to have the strip cartoons to work on sometimes, I can cope with those however lively my surroundings. I’ve put up the nesting box for the starlings – other than that I’ve been busy with work or socialising. I miss those quiet June days when you were piecing together your mosaic or whittling away at some knotty bit of wood and it was possible to listen, contemplate and explore how we felt.
On the subject of mosaics, Ham and I gave your “Fishermen” to Harald for his birthday. It was for sale, after all. You said eight, didn’t you?
He was very pleased with it, and it will have a fine place in a home that actually has good taste when it comes to beautiful objects.
Tuulikki, I long to read more in the book of you. I long for you in every way, and I’m more alone with all these people around me than when I was wandering about on my own, thinking of you.
And here is a new little creature that isn’t quite sure if it’s allowed to come in!
Your Tove.
IN THE SUMMER OF 1956 THERE WAS A GREAT DEAL OF WORK to be done, but also a succession of visitors to Bredskär. Tove Jansson completed some advertising illustrations, wrote an article and a short story, worked on the Moomin cartoons (which she referred to as “strips”) and designed a number of products for the forthcoming Moomin window display at Stockmann’s department store in Helsinki. “I need these jobs and still can’t say no to anything,” she writes.
UNDATED [Women’s week, late July 1956, Bredskär]
Beloved,
Now all the phantoms have gone to bed after a great deal of talking, dancing to Nita’s radio, partying, a little Misunderstanding and general enjoyment, very much as usual.
The whole house has suddenly grown amazingly feminine with loads of little pots and jars, and clothes discarded here and there, and I’m going round like the captain of a cargo boat, making sure the load is evenly distributed. Outside it’s women’s week as well, with sun and rain all mixed up together and near-gales that force us indoors. I continue calmly with my strips and notice a tangibly friendly atmosphere starting to pervade the place, the island is gradually smoothing away urban fatigue and old complications, and everyone is changing down to a lower, quieter tone. Despite their defiant high spirits at finally having the freedom to be natural and talk about ghost matters without lowering their voices.
Uca and Bitti seem to be getting on better and better, and Bitti has finally started to understand Nita. And working gives me such joy and pleasure. I’ve sent off all 10 of Tauchers’ advertisements, and the map they wanted – so now it’s only the colour covers for the brochure. They changed their minds and don’t want the advertisements in colour any more – which saves loads of work that I wouldn’t have enjoyed.
And I’ve illustrated the Sv. Dagbladet article and sent it in, and finally overcome my terrible aversion and written their Christmas story. They’re using two-colour printing for the illustrations.
The Mars synopsis has been approved. To my amazement they seem to like it better than anything they’ve had from me before – and I was afra
id they’d turn it down; I thought it was too flippant and crazy. And lacking that knowing sense of intimacy I try to inject into the comic strips.
Today I’m up to 10,246 and there’s a new batch on the petrol shelf, ready to go off. Bitti has been baking, the foul weather continues, the radio is on, the kilju is running out and the wood as well. Moreover the baby swallows have flown the nest and the finches aren’t getting caught in the nylon net any more. And we’re completely cut off by a strong northerly wind – so I can’t receive any letters from you to explain that you got entirely the wrong end of the stick and are happy again, believe in me and will come out here as soon as you possibly can.
I’m starting to get really fed up with being without you now. It’s utter idiocy, in fact, to be apart just as we’ve found one another and are engaged in the tricky process of sniffing out precisely what it is we’ve found.
I miss you quite dreadfully.
10252.
I’ve had a letter now and know you are happy – but sick and tired of Korpilahti and all the barmy people there – and that your stomach misery is over and I shall soon have you here on the island.
Tomorrow Uca and Nita are going into town and they’ll try to track you down in order to send you out here as soon as is humanly possible. If there’s no suitable boat, you can take a bus to Borgå and another one from there to Tirmo. And make sure Abbe knows you’re coming. I’m sending you the bus times – bring them with you when you come.
Since 10,246 I’ve been working non-stop and have produced the illustrations for the Christmas story and some squiggles for Stockmanns’ Moomin window display this autumn, namely some wrapping paper, paper dolls, transfers and decor for a square candle; each as idiotic as the rest. But it’s the sort of thing I can’t say no to. Not yet!